Users access web applications on remote web servers. In one example, the web application allows users to purchase certain products or services online. However, the user may experience problems while conducting the online purchase. For example, the web application may crash every time the user selects an icon on a web page used for the online purchase. In another situation, the user may not be able to determine how to complete the online product purchase from the instructions displayed on the web page. In a different situation, the web application may prevent the user from selecting particular items. In yet another situation, the web site may slow down or crash during certain periods of time or for particular operations. These are just a few of the many problems that may arise during an online network session.
These problems can negatively affect an e-commerce business. For example, a negative user experience during the online session may cause a potential customer to give up and abort the purchase of a particular product. Even worse, the potential customer may stop visiting the web site. Accordingly, it is important to be able to monitor user experiences during online sessions and identify any problems.
Systems currently exist for monitoring web sites. However, a challenge exists replaying the events captured during the web site monitoring. For example, web pages used today execute code that operates more independently from the web server and contains more state information. These rich web pages make it more difficult to accurately replay a previously captured Internet session.